Dramatis Personae... Gone Wrong!
by Frog Fad
Summary: **Now with two chapters!** In which Frog Fad screws up the canon! Starring Harry Potter as himself... but what about everyone else?
1. Gone Wrong

Warning: This is rather screwed up.

Disclaimer: Frog Fad merely messes up what JK Rowling creates.

# Dramatis Personae

## Gone Wrong

________________________________by Frog Fad________

Harry's footsteps jarred to a petrified halt midway down the tower steps.

_How did I get on the tower steps?_

For the life of him, he couldn't remember starting down them. He couldn't remember exiting the portrait hole. He didn't remember picking up the bookbag now slung over his right shoulder, didn't remember dressing himself in this particular set of robes, didn't even remember sitting up in his dormitory that morning and pulling back the curtains to let in the sunlight. It was as if he'd suddenly broken into consciousness halfway through an hour of sleepwalking. Or as if his brain had just hit the reset switch—like Dudley's fist so often did with his Playstation. 

He remained frozen in mid-stride for a moment, waiting for his mind to kick back in, when he heard voices echoing from the flight above him. They belonged to a boy and a girl—and though both seemed vaguely familiar, there was also something faintly incorrect about them. The girl's voice… it rang strong in his memory somewhere, but he couldn't quite place it. And the boy's voice… it connected with something, too, but not nearly as solidly. Like a puzzle piece whose pattern matches the one next to it, but which interlocks doubtfully, wobbling around in a shape that may or may not fit its supposed partner. 

But if it was morning, and he was headed down the Gryffindor steps, the descending voices could only belong to two fellow Gryffindors—engaged in some debate over the rights of house elves. This, too, seemed somewhat familiar—and somewhat wrong. Harry perked up his ears as the two Gryffindors continued on down the intermittently carpeted stone steps, their arguments flailing ever more furiously down the spiraled passageway. 

"You just don't get it, do you?" the girl was saying. "They _like_ doing work! You can't get them to stop, they're nutters about it! It's like telling _you _not to take Arithmancy because you're already busting your fingers to the bone writing essays for Muggle Studies!"

"This isn't about studying, this is about slave labor," a distinctively male voice huffed. "It's exactly what went on with African Muggles two hundred years ago in North America. You're trying to fabricate some rationalization for cruel slave labor."

"It's not slave labor!" the girl insisted, exasperation flinging from her tone. "And it's not cruel, either. What'd be cruel is if they _weren't _allowed to work."

"They're not _allowed_ to work, they're _forced_ to work," the boy corrected. "Their rights to freedom have been alienated." The word 'alienated' pounded darkly down the stairwell for a moment, causing Harry an involuntary shudder before the girl's voice rejoined it.

"Oh honestly! When have you ever met a house elf moping around because it had too much work? Chores are like Christmas to them. If a house elf ever goes moping about it's because they _haven't _any work. They don't _want _freedom. Just look what happened to Winky after Crouch threw her out. She's an absolute wreck." 

Harry blinked. Winky and Crouch. Those names made sense. Winky was a house elf. Crouch's house elf. He'd dismissed her at the Quidditch World Cup, and now she was working at Hogwarts… or at least, supposed to be working. Harry recalled that Winky merely huddled by the kitchen fire like some down-trodden Cinderella who'd somehow shattered her glass slippers.

Then another familiar sound ruffled into his ear—the shift of material and light clink of an inkbottle as someone tugged at a bookbag strap to even out the sagging weight of textbooks over their shoulders. The male voice trailed immediately after it.

"Winky just hasn't had the chance to adjust yet. But as long as we're bringing case arguments into this, why don't _you _take a look at Dobby. His freedom is a dream come true."

And then the girl's voice, dismissively, "You get crazies in every bunch."

"What makes you so sure Dobby's the crazy? Maybe the crazy one is Winky."

The girl scoffed. "And maybe the crazy one is you, Severus Snape."

Harry felt the muscles in his neck stiffen. Snape? What in blazes would Snape be doing coming down the tower staircase? He was usually lurking around in the dungeons, wasn't he? And who on earth would have the gall to tell Snape he was crazy, and expect to get away with it, anyway?

But before Harry had the time to think further, the girl continued, "First there's the two dozen books you've always got your nose stuck in, then this SPEW nonsense—"

The hair follicles prickled. SPEW? Why was that familiar? And if that was familiar, why couldn't he place it?

"—not to _mention_ all the spit you waste drooling over Professor Evans in Defense Against the Dark Arts—it's a wonder she can even read your essays, what with your parchments always so soggy."

There's no Professor Evans… Who's Professor Evans? Moody teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"I am _not _drooling over Professor Evans," the male voice snapped.

Harry felt his stomach lurch. It _was_ Snape. But no, that wasn't right… the voice wasn't heavy enough, not gravelly enough. A lame _imitation_ of Snape, perhaps, but not Snape. It couldn't be Snape. But that was what the girl had called him. He'd heard it very plainly—Severus Snape. He only knew one Severus Snape—only one Severus, for that matter—and the name was hardly a candidate for popularity in baby name books. And yet… it was difficult to imagine the Snape he knew drooling over anybody, especially another Professor.

"Yeah, and I'm the Minister of Magic," the girl snorted.

"That's funny, you don't _look _like a surly Parselmouth," Snape shot back. 

Harry almost laughed. Fudge, a Parselmouth? Hardly.

_"So _sorry, Minister Riddle," Snape continued, his trademark iciness slipping into the taunt. "I didn't realize Hogwarts was subject to surprise inspections."

Harry's blood thickened.

_Minister what?_

"Don't be such a git, Severus," came the snide remark. "Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

"Oh, honestly! I don't know how I put up with you."

Harry felt a sudden urge to vomit. That girl's voice was… But no, that wasn't right, either. That couldn't be right. Hermione didn't talk to Snape. Not unless she was answering a Potions question. And last time he checked, Hermione was advocating house elf rights, not undermining them. But then, since when was Snape a house elf activist? And since when did he engage himself in extracurricular debate with Hermione? 

And since when did this go on _in Gryffindor tower?_

"It's more _me _putting up with _you,_" Snape retorted, in the same irked tone he used when speaking to Neville. "You and Harry."

Harry flinched, but Snape's rant continued echoing down the stairwell to his ears.

"You two, constantly marauding around under that blasted invisibility cloak and crawling to me for help when you can't keep pace with the class."

The sick feeling intensified in Harry's stomach. Since when did he go to Snape for extra tutoring? Snape was the absolute _last _person he'd ever deign approach if he were falling behind in his studies. And Hermione never needed help in anything. Usually she was the one _giving_ the help, not receiving it. 

Harry hardly noticed the voices growing louder.

Hermione (if it _was _Hermione) made a dismissive noise in her teeth. "I don't need your help to pass, thank you very much."

"Oh yeah?" Snape (if it _was_ Snape) used a gray tone somewhere between a taunt and a challenge. "Just keep that in mind next time Professor Longbottom decides to test out your poison antidotes."

What?

"Fine, I will. Longbottom is a stupid slimeball anyway—he probably couldn't poison a pillbug."

_What?_

"Neither could you, if you didn't have me to help you study."

"I said I didn't need your help. And if you think for one minute, Severus, that I'm going to—"

The tirade was cut short as someone plowed into Harry. He stumbled down a few steps, catching himself with his hands as someone behind him let out a wild yelp of surprise. As he tripped down the steps, Harry turned to see whoever had plowed into him scramble to right herself by grabbing at the collar of her companion's robes. She only succeeded in yanking him off his feet and sending him sprawling, tumbling head over heels past Harry and down several more tightly spiraling stairs—until he finally slammed rudely into the wall and crashed on his stomach, his arm lodging in the trick step. A ruffling avalanche of books and loose parchment from his bookbag spilled down to the landing without him.

"Sorry, Harry," Hermione muttered sheepishly, apologetically disentangling herself from him. Harry just gaped, suddenly and inexplicably mute as he watched his friend brush the curls from her face. Her brown eyes shifted away from him, oblivious to his shock.

"Severus, you all right?" she called.

He grunted. "If by all right you mean jammed up to the shoulder in the trick step and wiping a bloody nose on the carpet, yes. Absolutely corking. Never been better."

Hermione tossed her mahogany eyes irritably toward the ceiling. "Don't be a twit."

Severus made an indignant noise, lifting his head as far from the step as he could. Harry felt a frigid rush of fear—the obsidian eyes peering over the step undoubtedly belonged to Snape, the Potions Master. 

"You throw me down half the tower stairs, give me a right good bruising, a bloody nose, and probably two black eyes, and all you have to say is 'Don't be a twit'?"

Looking anything but sympathetic, Hermione began picking her way through the scattered mess of parchments to the trick step holding Snape captive. "For heaven's sakes, Severus, don't be such a drama queen. It wasn't intentional and your eyes aren't any blacker than usual." She seized his free arm and began tugging to free him.

Her angle was less than thought out, however, and Snape winced as she started to pull, his arm twisting around behind him. "Ouch! Bloody hell, Hermione, the idea is to pull my arm out of the step, not out of its socket."

"Oh honestly, you're such a baby," she chided, not looking up. "Harry, give me a hand."

But Harry did not give Hermione a hand. He had scraped himself off the steps during the exchange and was gawking like both Severus and Hermione had flobberworms waving from their ears.

"Well, don't just stand there gaping like a dead fish, help me!" Severus insisted, heavy with annoyance. "You aren't exactly an innocent bystander, either, Harry. What the hell were you doing stopped in the middle of road?"

Harry blinked. What was he supposed to say? The scene was just so ridiculous that nothing sprang to mind. Snape—and a shorter, more wiry Snape, he suddenly noted—with a bloody nose and his arm stuck in the trick step, dressed in students' robes with a bookbag slung over his shoulders—the contents of which had been scattered all over the stairs. And then Hermione, looking somewhat lighter without her normal burden of textbooks, yanking on Snape's free arm. He wasn't sure whether to laugh, wince, pinch himself, or turn around and go back to bed.

"I… what?"

Snape shot him a look of pure annoyance. "Are you going to help me up, or just sit there like an idiot?"

"Apparently he's just going to sit there," muttered Hermione. "Staring at you like you're You-Know-Who, or something."

Snape winced as Hermione gave his arm another sharp tug, but to no avail.

Harry blinked again, his head beginning to reel with disorientation. "You-Know-Who?" he repeated, mindlessly. "You mean Voldemort." 

Snape and Hermione both quit complaining and tugging, respectively, and glanced up, raising their eyebrows at him. 

"Volde-what?" said Hermione.

Severus sniggered. "How hard did you plow into him, Hermione? You've knocked him cross-eyed. Whock your head on the steps, Harry?"

"I… no," Harry fumbled. _Had _he hit his head? No, surely it was just a strange dream. Ron ought to be waking him up at any minute now, flinging back the bedcurtains and whalloping him with a pillow, demanding to know why Harry had overslept. Any minute now.

Hermione punched Snape lightly. "Don't joke about it, Severus, it's not funny," she chided. "If You-Know-Who had killed _your _parents, I don't think you'd be taking it very lightly. You wouldn't be about to forget it just because you'd taken a fall on the stairs."

Snape was silent for a moment. "I suppose not." He lifted his head again to peer over the step and shrugged with one shoulder. "I'm surprised you have the guts to say his name, Harry, after what he put you through."

Harry blinked rapidly and shook his head, trying to clear it of the nauseating buzzing. "After… who?"

Hermione frowned. "Well, you don't have to make _us_ say it, Harry."

"Yeah, no thanks," Snape added tersely, glaring at the tight red carpet weave.

Harry felt the stairway beginning to stretch and sway beneath him, the steps lolling from side to side like planks set in a rope bridge at high wind. "S-say… what?"

Hermione paled, her mouth clamping shut with a hollow snap.

Snape muttered something unintelligible into the floor, and Hermione gave him a sharp kick. He raised his voice in response, reiterating, "I said 'damn him to hell.' Probably the devil himself, though, so it doesn't matter." He grinned wryly. "Just proves what the Irish say about redheads."

Acid that would have set to work on Harry's breakfast shot to the top of his throat. He reached out a trembling hand to steady himself against the stone.

Snape shook his head. "Damn that… that…" He gathered a courageous breath. "Damn that Wea—"

"Don't say it!" Hermione shrieked, clapping her hands over her ears. 

But it was too late. 

Harry keeled over in a dead faint.


	2. Gone Wrong 2

Warning: This is rather screwed up.

Disclaimer: Frog Fad merely messes up what JK Rowling creates.

# Dramatis Personae

Gone wrong 2

_______________________________by Frog Fad_________

"You think he's all right?"

"I don't know, he whocked his head pretty hard."

Voices buzzed over Harry's head, permeating the unconscious haze. He thought about opening his eyes, but was afraid he might discover the room was tumbling end over end.

"Well, it's all your fault, you dumb git."

"_My _fault? How's him fainting _my _fault?"

Harry tightened his lids. Who fainted? Had he fainted? That might explain why he was on the floor. Or… no, it wasn't the floor. It wasn't level enough to be floor, but cold enough to be. Rock. That's what it was. Steps. Stairs. He was lying on the stairs.

"You tried to say You-Know-Who's name, you stupid prat! What in heaven's name did you do that for?"

"What?" the voice rang defensively. "Harry says it all the time, Hermione, that's got nothing to do with it. You don't see him fainting every time he goes and says it, do you?"

"That's beside the point. He wasn't expecting you to say it."

Harry chanced opening his eyes. Though his glasses hung askew across his face, the room—or rather, the stairwell—wasn't gyrating. But as he glanced upwards, he felt his head was the thing doing the gyrating. Whether it all was just a dream or delirium, fainting apparently hadn't solved the problem, for standing over him were two young people—students—that may or may not have been Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. 

Hermione. He was absolutely sure it was Hermione, but on the other hand, he _couldn't _be sure. She was too rosy, too… too… well, too pretty! Her usual mane of dirty-brown frizz had been coaxed into dark, luxurious curls of lazy russet, and her cheeks were daintily blushed. There was absolutely no way anybody's lips were that red, and if Harry wasn't seeing things, she was wearing mascara. Not that Hermione normally dressed badly, but now she had robes that hung against her body very fashionably—and attractively—her hands were manicured, she was wearing rings, and lacked that callous she had developed from gripping the quill too hard. 

She looked the kind of girl who studied not textbooks, but the _Hottie Hotlist_ column in _Witch Weekly_. The kind of girl who attended Quidditch matches just to giggle at the Beaters' builds.

But if all that was odd, when Harry switched his eyes to Snape… Well, it was something like swallowing a bizarre assortment of Every Flavor Beans—of flavors like phlegm, feathers, and cheese dip. Professor Snape—who at the moment didn't look a _thing _like a professor—was no longer tall his tall, intimidating self. He'd shrunk down several inches into his shoes—_tennis shoes?_—to where he barely stood eye level with Hermione. His face wasn't nearly so pale or sallow, but his goatee had gone on holiday, and for lack of it, he seemed gaunter than before. Or maybe that was just because his wiry shoulders were draped with dirty black students' robes draped that looked a size too big for him. Or maybe it was because his blue jeans were too—

Harry did a double-take. _Blue jeans_?! And not just blue jeans, either, Harry noted. Vintage Levi 501s. It was just so ridiculous that all he could do was gawk. Snape in blue jeans. _Next thing you know, I'll find Filch in a kilt._

At the moment, Snape was angrily dusting off his pointed hat in his hands, and Harry noted that the scraggly mess of greasy, dead-black locks that should have fallen to his shoulders was instead cropped inches from the scalp. It looked a lot like Harry's, actually. And all of it disappeared from view when he jammed the hat back on his head.

"And I wasn't expecting you to throw me down the stairs, but I'm not getting much pity out of you, now am I?" Snape was indignantly informing Hermione.

Harry couldn't help but think that Snape was right, but Hermione didn't seem to be bothered. "Oh, shove it," she scoffed. "You're not even bleeding."

"Then what do you call that? Rouge?" A trail of wet crimson was trickling down Snape's cheek, and he swiped at it with one hand. 

"Well, yes. If you keep smearing it across your face like that."

Snape shot her a dirty look. "Just because I haven't bright green eyes," he huffed, "or a position on the Quidditch team, apparently I don't bleed." He rolled his left sleeve inside-out and started mopping the blood from his face.

Hermione twisted up her nose in disgust. Harry thought the expression was actually pretty cute—it made her look like a pixy. "Severus, that's revolting."

"Bugger off, Hermione," Snape said curtly, rubbing the sleeve cuff over his cheek and then holding it against his temple to staunch the bleeding. "You'd rather I just left it?"

Hermione propped her hands on her hips. "It's still disgusting."

He flicked her an annoyed glance. "Nobody asked you."

She ignored him, turning her nose away from Snape and his bloodied sleeve, and changed the subject in an uppity tone. "And I don't just go for Quidditch players, you know."

"Oh yes you do," Snape snorted. "Crabbe, Flitwick, Lupin, Dursley, Pettigrew… all of them Quidditch players. And half of them captains, at that."

"Lupin doesn't play Quidditch."

"Yes he does, he's the Hufflepuff Keeper. "

"No, they kicked him off. Can't catch a quaffle to save his life, I really don't know how he got on the team in the first place," Hermione rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Honestly, Severus, don't you _ever_ pay attention?"

He took the pressure off his temple and set about rolling the sleeve back down. "Not to the Quidditch careers of your prospective boyfriends, no."

Hermione stomped her foot. "I _told _you, they're not all Quidditch players."

"Lupin counts. He _was _one."

"I never said I wanted to go with Remus Lupin."

Snape paused, then lifted his head with a matter-of-fact air. "No, you said you 'wouldn't mind a snog' with 'dreamy R.J.,' if I recall correctly."

Hermione looked insulted. "I did not!"

"You did."

"I didn't, and you know I didn't!"

"What, have I got the wording wrong?" Snape twisted his face into a smirk. "It was something along those lines, anyway. Dreamy Remus and his… what did you and Rita call it? His lovely moon?"

"_No. _Lupin does _not _have a lovely moon. He's got one of the scrawniest moons in the whole school, if he's even got one at all." She smirked right back at him. "A lot like you, Severus."

He laughed mirthlessly. "Like I would want you looking."

She laughed right back. "Like you could get _anyone_ to look. Much less myself."

"Oh, right, I forgot," Snape dripped with sarcasm. "Aphrodite, should I kneel?"

"Shove it." Hermione slugged him. "Why don't you get that nose of yours pinched in a book and stop talking?"

"Gladly," he muttered, bending down to pick up a rather soggy textbook from the stairs, "if you hadn't managed to turn my Potions textbook into five-hundred page illustration of a blue ink puddle."

She waved him off. "Oh come off it, you had that entire thing committed to memory, anyway. And it's not my fault you carry that stuff around in your bookbag."

"What, ink or textbooks?" he muttered dryly.

"Don't be a smart-aleck."

"Well, considering you carry neither…"

"I don't _need_ to carry either." Hermione tossed her curls haughtily. "Ludovic is bringing them down."

Snape made a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. "Having Bagman do your homework again?"

Hermione cocked her head and smiled. "Well, I tried, Severus, but I just couldn't talk him out of it. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I know how it is. You'll get failed on the essay because the handwriting isn't yours, and then you'll flunk the exam because you didn't read the chapter."

She gave him a withering look. "Honestly, Severus, you're _such _a pessimist. Who cares about one little essay? And besides, I'm not trying to impress Professor Evans, unlike _some_ of us here."

"Oh, for the love of… Would you just drop it about Professor Evans?"

"You're sweet on her, everybody knows you are. Why don't you just admit it?"

"Because I have an ounce of self-respect?"

"Oh yeah? Then what were you doing in class last Thursday when Evans was talking about grindy-o's?"

"Grindy_lows_, Hermione," Snape corrected, "and it's called 'paying attention to the lecture.' Something you obviously _don't_ do, seeing as how we were discussing the five Merlinian hexes, not grindylows."

Hermione crossed her arms, undaunted. "That was some pretty rapt attention you were paying."

"It's a fascinating subject," Snape offhandedly replied, now gathering up a bunch of fallen parchments.

"The hexes or Professor Evans?"

Snape blew out his breath and stuffed the parchments in his bookbag. "Get bent, Hermione."

She grinned. "You've got it bad for her, just admit it."

"Didn't I just tell you to get bent?"

"He did," said Harry, sitting up. Snape and Hermione both stopped bantering, as if just now remembering he was there.

"Oh, good, Harry, you're all right," Hermione said, walking up a step or two and taking his arm gently. "Here, let me help you up," she cooed.

"Oh, for the love of Merlin," Snape scoffed as Hermione helped Harry to his feet. 

"Wha—" Harry started to say, but a flushing Hermione cut him off.

"Shut up, Severus."

"Oh come on, you've been flirting with him since start of term—"

"I said shut _up_, Severus!" 

"—so why don't you just go find a broom closet and—"

"Severus Snape, say one more word and I'll—"

"—give him a nice, wet, gushy snog?"

Harry gave a snort of laughter. Things were getting more and more ridiculous by the second. He'd have to tell Ron all about it later—this really was one hell of a dream! 

But the dream Hermione was positively fuming, her pixy face just short of turning a very unbecoming shade of purple, and Harry hastily tried to smother his laughter with a forced cough. Boy, if looks could kill.

"I'm going with _Ludovic_, thank you _very _much," Hermione growled, teeth clenched and hands balled up into fists at her sides.

Ludovic _Bagman_? Harry had to fight the urge to bust up again. Hermione was dating _Ludo Bagman_? He had a sudden mental picture of Hermione in a set of bright yellow robes with a big, stretched-out wasp on the stomach, and had to bite his tongue—hard—to keep from sniggering.

"Yup," Snape nodded. "And last week you were going with Peter Pettigrew, and Godric Gryffindor the week before, and poor Ernie Prang and Stan Shunpike at the same time before that."

"I _never _dated Ernie Prang," Hermione hissed. 

Snape spread his hands, a wide grin on his face. "I'm sorry, Hermione, but you can't expect me to keep track of them all."

"Shut up. Just shut up," she bit out. "Just because you couldn't get a girl to save your life." She grabbed Harry's arm—and her grip was rather painful—and began stalking down the stairs, dragging him behind her. "Come on Harry, let's go down to breakfast. Have fun cleaning up your books, Severus."

She stomped deliberately on what looked like a Potions essay, and marched off, Harry in tow.

Snape cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled after them, "Watch she doesn't drag you into a broom closet, Harry!"

Not turning around, Hermione yelled back, "Just because you'd be jealous!"

"In your dreams!"

"In _your_ dreams!"

_Apparently in mine_, Harry thought with an odd smile.


End file.
